Constituencies must have the same population size-McManu

Ada, March 29,GNA – Mr Peter McManu, Campaign Manager of Nana Akufo-Addo in the 2016 Presidential Elections, says all constituencies must have the same population size to give true meaning to fairness and the equal representation of the people.

Making his contribution at a Post-election stakeholders’ review workshop on the 2016 Presidential and Parliamentary elections at the Volta River front resort of Aqua Safari at Ada, he said the principle of equality should guide the future creation or re-alignment of constituencies and that it must run through all national projects.

The workshop which was attended by representatives of political parties, civil society, the electoral Commission, journalists and other stakeholders, was organised by the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO).

The two-day event sought to discuss and critique issues such as consolidating best practices and learning from gaps/omissions during the conduct of the 2018 polls, the EC, the media and the collation of results and announcements/declaration of election results: Successes and challenges, the lingering subject of compiling a credible voter register, the media and coverage of the Elections and Election and campaign financing in Ghana as well as electoral corruption (vote buying and abuse of incumbency).

Mr McManu asked the EC to appreciate criticisms because its usual slogan of “we are an independent body” would not absolve it of the sins of partiality, unprofessionalism, lack of inclusiveness adding that ”when we criticise, we criticise for improvement”.

Mr Ofusu Ampofo, the Director of Elections of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), urged the EC to put all newly created districts on its central platform to facilitate electoral processes such as registration, proxy voting and vote transfer.